REACTING TO FUNNY LITERAL FINNISH TRANSLATIONS | Part 3 

The word "ajaa" means to drive but it also means to plead something e.g. to plead a case. A better but still literal translation for "asianajaja" would be a thing pleader.

-sto is suffix to form nouns (that are often kinda groups of something): kirjasto, laatikosto, lipasto, virasto, ilmasto, enemmistö, laivasto, puisto, opisto, tiestö, kiinteistö, vesistö...

I believe the "valta" in "valtameri" would be better translated as something like "might", as in "mighty sea". One of the Finnish words for huge is "valtava". The meaning of "might" and "power" is similar, but "mighty sea" is waaaaay more descriptive of an ocean than "power sea". Out of context, "power sea" sounds like a sea that generates energy, but a "mighty sea" is a sea that's fricking huge. Similarly, the "väki" in "väkivalta" would be more accurately "force", as in "forced power". Confer words like "väkisin" (forcefully) and "väittää" (to claim, i.e. make a forceful statement). The meaning of "people" or "mob" to the word "väki" comes from force, as there's strength in a mob.

While "väki" does mean people, translating it as such in _väkivalta_ is a bit like translating "suolakurkku" as a _salt throat_ instead of _salt cucumber_ (pickle). In väkivalta, väki means _strength, power,_ or _potency,_ like in the word "väkevä".

There's a bit of a problem with the rinta translation. It also means chest, so it doesn't have to be about boobs. So chest jewelry would be a better translation

The word "väki" has a long history in finnish mytology. It means the spirits of the place like forest-väki or sea-väki, but it also means the power embedded in things. Thus we have combined it to make words such as väkijuoma meaning alcohol (power-potion :D ), väkijoukko meaning a crowd (there's lot of spirit power in groups of people), etc

The word "mustasukkainen" comes from a misunderstanding of the second half of the Swedish compound "svartsjuk" (also meaning jealous, literally black-sick). When Finns translated the word from Swedish, they misunderstood the "sjuk" part of "svartsjuk". By the way, the Swedish word "sjuk" is a cognate of the English word "sick".

My favorite part is that Dave uses always the first translation which usually is more or less correct in context but when you start to translate words like valta you can go from power to authority and whatever else like potency and potency can translate back to 4 different things so here you have the 1 word means multiple different things

Vuoristorata: Vuoristo = a range of mountains Rata = track (like for a train) I'll also say that "rinta" also means chest, not just breast. 🤭

"Hei olen asianajaja Janne, asianajajananne Ajan asiaanne asianajaja-Jannenanne" -Edorf in the song Kyttäjuttu by Tapani kansalainen

Himalayas is vuoristo. Mount Everest is vuori. A rollercost has many peaks, so it is a mountain range, vuoristo. Totally logical. But what the heck means a rollercost ;)

Valta also means authority or rule. In the case of valtameri, the thought process is probably "valtava meri", an enormous sea. Valtava of course being an adjective formed from valta.

My favourite is "yritys" which means corporation in english but the literal translation is just "attempt" And if you own a corporation (yrittäjä) you try. Its literally translated to someone who tries. 😂

Väkivalta actually comes from old finnish where väki (väkevä) ment "strong". So it could be translated as "power of strenght". You can also hear even novadays a word väkivahva ("strong strong") which means extraordinary strong.

Storata is not a word but vuori, vuoristo and rata are words :D

Word väki can also mean force like väkipyörä force wheel rather than people wheel is pulley. So väkivalta is more like forced power.

I only wished that this would be longer. 7 mins goes so fast when it's so funny seeing you trying to figure out the words

It could have actually been fun to have Dave guess all the air balloon type compound words together, e.g. ilmapallo, kuumailmapallo, lentopallo, maybe even pesäpallo and polttopallo. Here are a few suggestions for next time: - pyyhekumi - salibandy - arkkupakastin - lehtivihreä - tiimalasi - jakoavain - mustekala - pyörätuoli - peräsin - valonheitin - kuunsilta - revontuli (only in case Dave doesn't know this one) - siemenkota - käpylehmä - kilpikonna - papukaija - korppikotka - lastentarha - härkäpapu

There is another word for lawyer, lakimies which translates to law man. I'd say asianajaja would be more like a translation for attorney.

A couple of suggestions for the next round: jälkipyykki, silmäluomi, soittokunta and kirjanpitäjä.

I've always loved the silly proverbs like "piece of cake" and "helppo nakki." Easy sausage? Pala kakkua. They have the same meaning and both are... food.. kind of.

Väki, apart from meaning people, is actually an old word meaning power or strength. Compare to following words that derive from it: Väkevä (adjective)= strong Väkisin (adverb)= forcefully Väkijuoma = alcohol, strong liquor Väki means people precisely because it originally refers to people as a source of power, man power. (Example: "Sotaväki" referring to army, military personnel) Väki and valta both mean power but of a different kind: valta means social power and privilege, political power, majority rule etc. Väki and voima mean physical power and strength.

I'd say väkivalta means more forced power than people power

I've been away from youtube and haven't seen your videos in some time. I must say wow, Dave your Finnish has improved so much! You should be proud of yourself, 10 pistettä ja papukaijamerkki!

Väki is also an old word for power or force. And valta is power in the sense of "power over something", authority, or similar, not physical power. Thus the implication with the word "väkivalta" should more likely be taken as "having power over someone through force", or something along those lines.

Vuoristo-rata not vuori-storata :D Vuoristo is multiple mountains as the Alps :) Great video again

Not to mention the place names, like Vesijärvi= water lake.

Some suggestions for part 4 (sorry if some of these have already been used in earlier parts): vallankumous, mustekala, karvalaukku, henkitorvi, jakoavain, kusettaa (huom. kaksi eri merkitystä), siipikarja, heittomerkki.

Recently r/Finland has had A LOT of foreingers ask rather silly questions from Finns. It would be fun to see you react to them!

Words for Cat: salapoliisi, hirvikärpänen, lintuaura, kiiltomato :D

I think the angle-hairs would have been more accurate, since corner is more like nurkka than kulma. Kulma is literally an angle.

WTF? I'm a subscriber but today is the first time I've seen your video on my feed in over two years.Glad to see you again. Hello from Osaka!

Ask your wife what svartsjuk means. That was "mistranslated to Finnish as mustasukkainen. 😀

I laughed so hard when you were trying to translate storata😂 So, yeah that doesn't mean anything.

Absolutely love these videos!

I've only been learning Finnish for a couple of months, but this was really fun to watch!

Re: 5:08 - here's a repost of the comment I left a year ago on Part 2 of this vid series: My favorite strange compound word in Finnish is väkivalta, which translates to 'violence'. Literally speaking, the latter part, 'valta', means power, might, force, or influence. 'Väki' nowadays means 'people', but in the heavily animistic pre-Christian times it used to mean power in the sense of a natural or supernatural force, strength, skill, or charisma. So you could literally translate väkivalta as 'forceful influence', or as I prefer to think of it: 'power power'.

This is great PLEASE do more 😂❤️

Mustasukkainen kääntyisi englanniksi ehkä paremmin black socked. Sinänsähän siinä ei ole mitään uutta, että eri kielien idiomien kääntäminen sanatarkasti johtaa hullun kuuloiseen lopputulokseen. Vanha vitsihän on kääntää suomea sanatarkasti ruotsiksi. Harjavalta-Borstmakten, Peräseinäjoki-Akterväggälven, vändningshandlingeriet-käännöstoimisto

Vuoristo = Mountain range. Rata = track. No such word as storata :D Great video.

Honestly lentopallo for hot air balloon makes a lot of sense, like it follows the logic of how finnish works...

5:21 "I've seen that in a donut"🍩 In what kind of bakeries have you been lately? 🤣

Suggestions: Paskarinki Pohjoisnapa Takaraivo Kynttilänjalka Pesukarhu Revontuli

My favourite finnish word has honestly got to be "pissapoika" 😂 Also with animals we have "nokkaeläin" which is so descriptive but also very much a wtf kinda moment. You should include these if you ever decide to do another one, trust me xdddd

More of these please :D I have spent last hour just rewatching all of finnish idioms and literal translations.

Asianajaja means an attorney at law, not all lawyers are attorneys, a normal lawyer would be either "juristi" or "lakimies" (literally "lawman"). "Asia" in asianajaja refers to someones cause, which would make it a "causedriver"

The best thing about these is that Dave really is ashamed.. he admits that he sometimes is stupid. We love him because of that.

Old meaning of "väki" is powerful, like in word "väkevä" so väkivalta is not "people power" but more like rule over with power or dominate with power.

More! And sayings too!

Never thought of the literal translation for väkivalta before so I was definitely caught off guard by violence = people power😂

Besides "valta" (power) "valtava" also means enormous.

väki actually originally meant force. My mom studied finnish at Helsinki university=Helsingin yliopisto :)

I'm surprised that so many Finnish words are made the same as in Sweden. Like "laugh pit" - skrattgrop. Rollercoaster, Swedish is in the same area; "berg-och-dal-bana" - "mountain and valley track".

"Nojata" means to "to lean against smh" but "noja" means something that can be leaned against. In this case it refers to the backrest.

“Mustasukkainen” is jealousy in a romantic sense. If you’re jealous of your neighbor’s new car etc. it’s “kateellinen” 👍

Rintakoru :) ;) Nice job Dave :)

It was hilarious how you said vuo_ristorata, not vuoristo_rata which doesn't really mean anything but can be translated to flux Risto (a man's name) track :D

Valta can be also translated as "main". For example valtavirta = mainstream where valta = main and virta = steam.

väkivalta probably comes from the word väkisin, which means forcefully so it basically means using power by force (against someone).

Try to make a full video in finish

1:53 that is impossible to figure out as it is based on mistranslation: sjuk (sick) -> sukka. Väki means also force.

I will always be amazed your language progress ^^ and yes some of these literal translations are actually odd like "mustasukkainen" but as a native speaker I do think of jealousy first and not black socky

Better translation for "asianajaja" would be "advocate". (For "lawyer", I would say in Finnish "juristi".) An advocate "drives your thing" or in other words "advocates your matter-which-is-currently-at-hand".

Try Yhdistelmäajoneuvonkuljettaja 😂

Rinta is both chest and breast actually, but it is more often than not just used for breast.

Noja in nojatuoli refers to what you lean against (with your back and arms), and that of course is associated with leaning. But I wouldn't translate it as a lean chair. I might be wrong, of course. A nojatuoli can be divided into parts like käsiNOJA and selkäNOJA.

Mustasukkainen is a mispelled loan from swedish: Svartsjuk. Valtameri is shortened from valtaVAmeri e.g. huge sea

For väkivalta the right literal translation would be "strong power". Väki does mean people but also strong or strength as part of a combination word. Another example would be väkipyörä (strength wheel) which is a pulley.

Have you tried "molten madness" meaning?

Yeah google translate is really letting you down here because: rinta = chest, tissi = breast. Rinta isn't even usually used in the context of breasts, except when someone says "rinnat" (plural for rinta). And that you can kind of guess, because nobody has more than one chest, so they're referring to breasts.

Just the other day, I was thinking of the word 'väli' (which means 'gap') and it's such an interesting word! Cause we say 'ei oo mitään välii', for example, when we wanna say something doesn't matter - so in other words, 'doesnt have any gap' - took me a while to figure out it means like yeah, that thing and me, we have no shared space, no inbetween.. and välittää means to care, so youre basically actively "gapping" with that thing :D.. just my analysis but makes sense.

That was a really cool and learnable video ..(is " learnable" a word . Well you know ..) 🤭😉👍

Väkivalta - well basically violence is a exercize of ones power over others. Attempted dominance, right? Socks then, I always thought of, 'cause people used to wear a lot of white back in the day, I tought of it as something reverse to it, since color black has mainly negative attachments and meaning to it. In many cases.

asianajaja is more like errand runner instead of thing driver

Jääkaappi ice cabin maybe because early days but ice on cabin make food bee chill

Well jealous in Swedish is svartsjuk (black sick) mayhaps it's related somehow.

some say that "mustasukkainen (jaelous)" is probably mistranslation from Swedish.

Man I'm learning a lot about my mother tongue from these comments. 😁 I have often thought to myself how obscure language Finnish is when thinking about these kinds of words but I've never cared to look into their origin. 🤷‍♂️

In case anyone wants to know more about väki 🤟🏻 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4l-gJ4BKspE.html

Mustasukkainen actually wouldn't translate as appropriately to "black socky" but rather black socked or the one that has black socks.

4:05 a native finnish word cant start with "st-" so its probably not mountain + range track (what even is a range track), but more likely a mountain range (vuori with some kind of suffix leaving the -sto in there) + track (rata?). i have no idea about actual finnish vocabulary, in linguistics u mostly talk about how languages work and not what people there actually say :"D but thats my guess

Rintamalinja - breast (ma) line = battlefront (in army)

Literal translation does not usually work in any language :) I'm sure you know this already :) But why it doesn't work? Thing is, that we don't usually dismember long words into smaller pieces in order to better understand them. That's just confusing. For example; the word "väkivalta" is a one word with one specific meaning (violence). We think of it as a one word, - not a combination of two words. Usually we don't even realize that it has those two words baked in. "Väki" and "valta" are two words having their own meaning. And that's actually true in English also. Think of a word: "Butterfly". It has words "butter" and "fly" in it. But when combined, there's absolutely no link between them. Butterfly is a one word - and it has a specific meaning. It has nothing to do with dairy products or flies :) Or "Alanis Morrisette"? Alan is a tiny Morris dancer? Come on :D:D;D But these are really funny videos, so please keep'em coming :D

When you translate finnish words to english, do it backwards to check variation. Valta = Power (electricity) = Virta

I just bursted int laughter when i saw dimple because i have it but did not know it in english XDDD

Can you please guess direct translations of Finnish city names (both Finnish and Swedish names, since some cities have both)

Polkupyörä = Trail Wheel = Bike

Dave, do you know this Finns words? Piikkisika - spike pig

Some Germanic languages also have the expression 'black socky' .. it was adoorwd to Finnish from Swedish or German.

Dave Storata Cad

3:33 VUORISTO - RATA

Hävittäjä (annihilator) = jet fighter

Asia could mean several things: thing, (subject) matter, something to say (as in "minulla on asiaa"), or in the case of asianajaja, a court case.

To be fair, as a native speaker I was lost at rintakoru. Maybe because I've worn suits only few times and never had one.

In väkivalta the väki comes from old finnish religious word väki wich means like mana. It is part of the old pre-christian finnish religion and for example words väkivalta and väkijuoma come from there. But yes väki means people nowadays and many fins don't even know this

law man = lakimies = lawyer

Wasn't on this video but i just laugh about the word Lohikäärme= Dragon, while Lohi means salmon and käärme means snake, dragon is a salmon snake in finnish 😅🐉

A lot of these literal translations are quite misleading (so, they aren't actually literal translations - they are bad attempts at literal translation that don't take the context behind the words into account, because a single word can have many separate translations). Valtameri - I think the "valta" in this case comes from "valtava", i.e. "enormous". Also, I don't think "power" is necessarily the best translation of "valta". Power translates better to "voima" (power plant = voimalaitos). Sure, valta is power in the sense that someone in a position of power has "valta". I think "reign" or "authority" would be a better translation. Valta is power over something, not "electric power". Rintakoru - in this case, "rinta" means chest, not breast. Asianajaja - I don't think "ajaja" means "driver" in this case. In this case, I think the meaning of the word "ajaa" is closer to advocate/promote, so "ajaja" would be someone who advocates/promotes something. Also, I wouldn't translate "asia" as "thing" in this case. "Case" would be a much more accurate translation. I think "väkivalta" is interesting. I could see the word being kind of authoritarian propaganda (i.e. "if we give the people the power, there's going to be chaos and violence everywhere"). But I guess "väki" may also have a different meaning here - it could have the same root as "väkevä", which means powerful/strong (these days it's mostly used when referring to strong spices). Also, there's a word "väkisin" which means by force. And this seems like the more probable origin of the word (but I think my propaganda theory is more fun).

Rintakoru🤣🤣🤣

You cut the word "vuoristorata" from the wrong spot. "Vuori" does mean a mountain (it also has a second to my knowledge unrelated meaning of the inner lining of a piece of clothing, for example in a jacket, tho depending on which of the two meanings is in context the word is inflected differently. For example genetive of 'mountain' becomes "vuoren", but genetive of 'inner lining' becomes "vuorin". Something I always found curious.), but when you add the suffix '-sto' it becomes mountain range, i.e. a place with many mountains. "Storata" is not a word.